BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Columba Systems Ltd//NONSGML CPNG/SpringViewer/ICal Output/3.3- M3//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260731T100131Z DTSTART:20270225T130000Z DTEND:20270225T150000Z SUMMARY:“It’s alive!”: Prometheus\, Frankenstein\, and the Cyborgs UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}y32-ms8rw2g t-yau26m DESCRIPTION:Meat the Machine:\n\nor\, the Hidden History of Cybernetics a nd the Possible Futures of Humans\n\nA series of nine monthly seminars a t the University of Manchester exploring the rich and vibrant history of the radical science of cybernetics\, and the potentially profound impli cations of this hitherto occluded history for our shared socio-technical futures.\n\nAll events will run from 13:00 to 15:00 and will be hosted at the University of Manchester.\n\nMore details & registration here: ht tps://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meat-the-machine-or-the-hidden-history-of-c ybernetics-the-possible-futures-tickets-1995079941812\n\n1. Fire and Ice : The Conception\, Birth and Infancy of Cybernetics.\n\n24 September 202 6\nIn 1948 Norbert Wiener published Cybernetics: or Control and Communic ation in the Animal and the Machine. To the amazement of its author and publisher alike\, the book became an instant bestseller and spawned a gl obal intellectual movement that helped shape the world we inhabit today. The connection between cyber and Cybernetics is far more than merely no minative.\n\n\n2. Those Serendipitous Mavericks: The Ratio Club and earl y British Cybernetics.\n\n29 October 2026\nImmediately after the publica tion of Cybernetics\, a group of ambitious young British life-scientists \, mathematicians\, engineers\, and physicists formed a dining and discu ssion club centred on the radical ideas in Wiener’s book. Alan Turing wa s a member of the Ratio Club\, and his intersection with cybernetics and the Club’s members was central to his later thought.\n\n\n3. Ghost in t he Machine: The Battle for the Human Mind.\n\n26 November 2026\nFrom the outset\, Wiener’s contemporaries understood that his new science of cyb ernetics exposed humanism\, if not humanity\, to mortal peril. In Britia n particularly\, cybernetics ignited a heated philosophical debate betwe en mental vitalism and mechanism that was fought out across the mass med ia\, and which drew Alan Truing onto the public stage to openly defend h is scientific heresy.\n\n\n4. The Spectre of Automation: Robots in the N ew Jerusalem.\n\n28 January 2027\nThe contemporary impact of Wiener’s id eas spread far beyond the resurrection of Descartes’s ghost. In Britian and America alike Cybernetics raised the prospect of economic automation and the societal scale replacement of human labour\, cognitive as well as muscular\, from speculation to imminent fact. For some\, this promise d the final defeat of Malthus\, for others it portended a decline to dec adence.\n\n\n5. “It’s alive!”: Prometheus\, Frankenstein\, and the Cybor gs.\n\n25 February 2027\nIn 1960\, Nathan Kline\, a psychiatrist\, and M anfred Clynes\, an engineer\, gave their paper on “Drugs\, Space\, and C ybernetics: Evolution to Cyborgs” to the Conference on the Psychophysiol ogical Aspects of Space Flight at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Br ooks Air Force Base in America. Thus was the cyborg born from science no t fiction\, and with it Mary Shelly’s dire prophecy rose again.\n\n\n6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Intergalactic Network: The real origins of the Internet.\n\n18 March 2027\nCybernetics spread across the entire sp ectrum of American intellectual life\, including the deep enclaves of th e military-industrial-academic complex. Here it found expression not jus t in the foundational technical architectures of the experimental comput er network that became the Internet\, but also in the ideas its makers h ad about what it could become.\n\n\n7. A Tale of Beer\, Chile\, and Syn: Cybernetics in the service of socialism.\n\n20 April 2027\nIn the early 1970s Stafford Beer\, an early and key British cyberneticist\, was invi ted to Chile by the young technocrat Fernando Flores. Beer’s task was to implement the ideas of cybernetics in a system that would enable the go vernance and regulation of Chile’s economy and society in accordance wit h the socialist principles of Salvador Allende’s government. The CIA had other ideas.\n\n\n8. Algorithms against Neurons: The great schism betwe en AI and cybernetics.\n\n27 May 2027\nThe American mathematician John M cCarthy is generally credited as the creator of AI. However\, what is le ss well known is why he came to this creation in the first place. McCart hy’s convocation of the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence in 1956 was his conscious commencement of a deliberate yet covert schism between his new discipline of AI and cybernetics\, the con sequences of which continue to be felt today.\n\n\n9. Transcendence or T ermination?: Cybernetics\, transhumanism\, and the future.\n\n24 June 20 27\nAccording to the nineteenth century Russian Orthodox philosopher Nik olai Fyodorov\, the answer to the question of the meaning of life was th e conquest of death. For Fyodorov and his followers\, humanity had been granted the gift of science by God so as to attain immortality and colon ise space. Fyodorov’s cosmism now sits alongside Wiener’s cybernetics in the form of transhumanism that pervades the modern culture of Silicon V alley.\n\nConnect with the Centre for Digital Trust and Society:\n\nThe Centre for Digital Trust and Society organises the DTS Guest Seminar Ser ies and is a focal point for research across the University of Mancheste r that explores aspects of trust and security in our digital world. The Centre is part of Digital Futures\, a highly interdisciplinary network w hich operates across the whole range of the University of Manchester's d igital research.\n\nAbout Digital Futures:\n\nDigital Futures is a highl y interdisciplinary network that operates across the whole range of the University’s digital research. We aim to present a coherent overview of The University of Manchester's digital research activity to external sta keholders and bring together research communities to explore new researc h areas and address strategic opportunities.\n\nConnect with us:\n\nX: t witter.com/DigitalUoM\n\nBlue Sky: bsky.app/profile/digitaluom.bsky.soci al\n\nLinkedin: linkedin.com/showcase/digital-futures-at-the-university- of-manchester\n\nWebsite: digitalfutures.manchester.ac.uk\n\nNewsletter: tinyurl.com/digitalfuturesuom STATUS:TENTATIVE TRANSP:TRANSPARENT CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR